Year-round measurements of ozone at 66 deg S with a visible spectrometer

Abstract

In March 1990, a zenith-sky UV-visible spectrometer of the design 'Systeme Automatique d'Obervation Zenithal' (SAOZ) was installed at Faraday in Antarctica (66.3 deg S, 64.3 deg W). SAOZ records spectra between 290 and 600 nm during daylight. Its analysis program fits laboratory spectra of constituents, at various wavelengths, to the differential of the ratio of the observed spectrum and a reference spectrum. The least-squares fitting procedure minimizes the sum-of-squares of residuals. Ozone is deduced from absorption in its visible bands between 500 and 560 nm. The fortunate colocation of this SAOZ with the well-calibrated Dobson at Faraday has allowed us to examine the calibration of the zero of the SAOZ, difficult at visible wavelengths because of the small depth of absorption. Here we describe recent improvements and limitations to this calibration, and discuss SAOZ measurements of ozone during winter in this important location at the edge of the Antarctic vortex